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Conversational AI powers contact center tools like virtual agents and chatbots. It uses machine learning (ML) and natural language processing (NLP) to help customers and give them a great experience with a brand.

What is conversational AI for contact centers?
Conversational AI is a general term for the engine that makes tools like AI-powered chatbots, voicebots, and virtual assistants usable for contact center agents. In short, it enables companies to deliver better customer service and acts as an invaluable support tool for human agents

What is an example of conversational AI?
One example of conversational AI is a virtual agent.

You’re likely using one already but, in short, virtual agents are used by contact centers to provide 24/7 service to answer customer questions. They are especially helpful for frequently asked questions and basic account queries.

Conversational AI trends and statistics.
Conversational AI can be quicker, simpler, and easier than solving an issue with a human agent. In fact, 84% of CX professionals believe customers expect a 24/7 self-service option from brands. 80% of CX professionals also believe that AI can and will provide a better contact center experience for customers.

How does conversational AI work?
Using technology such as natural language generation, machine learning, and natural language understanding, conversational AI can provide exceptional text-based or voice assistance.

Need an example? Let’s look at the steps that an AI chatbot takes to leverage conversational AI that’s been trained with company-specific keywords:

Input generation—the customer either says or types their request.
Automatic speech recognition (ASR)– allows the AI to break down the sounds it receives through your phone speaker and arrange them into words. The simplest version of ASR requires specific words to be spoken, while higher-level technology can accept normal human speech patterns, including slang and mispronunciation.
Input analysis—natural language processing (NLP) cleans up the request so the artificial intelligence engine can understand it better. Natural language understanding (NLU) may be applied to enable the artificial intelligence engine to comprehend more nuances behind the request.
Natural language generation—the AI engine formulates a human-like response and sends it back to the customer.

Five benefits of using conversational AI in your contact center.
As AI technology grows, so do its benefits.

Think of IVR systems, which have made human operators all but obsolete for part of the customer journey. It’s simply quicker, easier, and cheaper to set up an IVR menu than it is to require all callers to wait for a live operator.

These and other benefits make conversational AI transformative for contact centers, optimizing the way they interact with customers.

1. Save time for customers and agents.
In a perfect world, your customers would never have to wait for an agent. Their issues would be resolved accurately and efficiently in a single call, and they could get help on their schedule, even if it’s outside normal business hours.

Running a contact center of human agents to meet this standard would be unrealistically costly and most likely impossible.

With conversational AI, however, you can.

And you can provide better support to your human agents in the process. On a call, internal tools like virtual assistants can pull up relevant shortcuts and next steps in real time. Afterward, ChatGPT technology provides features such as automatic summary that decrease wrap-up time and increases the accuracy of your agents’ notes.

2. Increase customer satisfaction.
Conversational AI and virtual agents create a streamlined customer experience and increase customer satisfaction ratings.

The call queues are shorter, due to AI’s capability to handle simple requests, while virtual assistants give real-time support to agents who are actively on calls, helping them find solutions faster.

3. Improve customer engagement.
Conversational artificial intelligence tools enable customers to locate relevant information, without having to spend time on the phone with an agent. This improves their opinion and sentiment toward the brand.

When a company provides helpful, efficient tools to customers, they are more likely to enjoy the brand and increase their engagement. This leads to a lower customer churn rate and higher referrals or positive reviews.

4. Enhance information accessibility to customers.
Accessibility limits can strain any customer’s relationship with a company. Customer service that’s only available in certain languages, at certain times, or via certain channels can shut entire sections of your customer base out.

A conversational AI bot is easy to reach at any time of day and can be organized to be available through a number of voice and written channels. You can even set up multilingual chatbots at a fraction of the cost that it would take to run multiple contact centers in different languages.

Virtual assistants can make the next best steps for your live agents clearer to prevent mistakes, and even send reminders to your customers to take time-sensitive actions.

5. Close sales 24/7.
Rather than wait for an agent to schedule a call for a sale and onboarding, conversational AI allows your customers to buy the moment they’re ready to.

Your AI can answer questions, offer suggestions, and even help users determine the best solution for them within your product or service line.

The gap between being ready to buy and having the chance to buy is a massive conversion killer. AI closes this gap by being available 24/7 and simplifying the sales process.

The accuracy and acceptance of speech recognition has come a long way in the last few years and forward-thinking contact center operations are now adopting this speech-processing technology to enhance their operation and improve their bottom-line profitability.

Here Brett Feldon tells us his most popular uses of voice recognition technology.

1. Playing back simple information
If you have customers who need fast access to information.

In many circumstances, customers do not actually need or want to speak to a live operator. For example, if they have little time or they only require basic information then speech recognition can be used to cut waiting times and provide customers with the information they want.

By deploying an intelligent speech recognition system, Dublin Airport was able to cope with a 30 percent rise in passenger numbers without the need to increase staff levels.

Incoming customer calls are filtered according to requirements and those wanting basic information, say on ‘departures’ or ‘arrivals’, are automatically directed to the speech recognition system that quickly evaluates the nature of the inquiry through a series of prompts. At all times there is an option to speak with a live operator, if necessary. The system has been fine-tuned to pick up the vagaries of the Irish accent.

The average call time has been reduced to just 53 seconds, freeing up skilled agents for more complex calls.

2. Call Steering
Putting callers through to the right department.

Waiting in a queue to get through to an operator or, worse still, finally being put through to the wrong operator can be very frustrating to your customer, resulting in dissatisfaction. By applying speech recognition, you can allow callers to choose a ‘self-service’ route or alternatively ‘say’ what they want and be directed to the correct department or individual.

Standard Life is using speech recognition for its Life and Pensions business. The solution helps in three ways: it ascertains what the call is about, if necessary it takes the customer through security checks, and then transfers the customer to the appropriate member of staff. The details that the customer has already provided appear on the screen so that they do not have to repeat the information.

Using this technology Standard Life increased its overall call handling capacity by over 25 percent and reduced its misdirected calls by 66 percent. The system also gives them a better understanding of why customers are calling, because it allows the customer to ‘voice’ their request rather than forcing them to conform to an organization’s preconceptions on what the customer wants.

3. Automated identification
Where you need to authenticate someone’s identity on the phone without using ‘risky’ personal data.

Identity fraud is now one of the biggest concerns facing UK organisations and research by the UK’s fraud prevention service (CIFAS) estimates that it is costing the UK £1.7bn a year. Some advanced speech recognition systems provide an answer to this problem using voice biometrics. This technology is now accepted as a major tool in combating telephone-based crime.

On average it takes less than two minutes to create a ‘voiceprint’ based on specific text such as ‘Name’ and ‘Account Number’. This is then stored against the individual’s record, so when they next call, they can simply say their name and if the voiceprint matches what they have stored, then the person is put straight through to a customer service representative. This takes less than 30 seconds and also bypasses the need for the individual to have to run through a series of tedious ID checks such as passwords, address details, and so on.

Australia’s 8th largest insurer, ahm Health Management is successfully using voice biometrics to allow existing account holders to speak to customer service representatives quickly and securely. The company has enrolled more than 20,000 customers’ voiceprints.

4. Removing IVR menus
Replacing complicated and often frustrating ‘push button’ IVR.

Due to poorly implemented systems, IVR and automated call-handling systems are often unpopular with customers.

However, there is a way to improve this scenario. Termed ‘intelligent call steering’ (ICS), it does not involve any ‘button pushing’. The system simply asks the customer what they want (in their words, not yours) and then transfers them to the most suitable resource to handle their call.

Callers dial one number and are greeted by the message “Welcome to XYZ Company, how can I help you?” The caller is routed to the right agent within 20 to 30 seconds of the call being answered with misdirected calls reduced to as low as 3-5 percent.

By introducing Natural Language Speech Recognition (NLSR), general insurance company Suncorp replaced its original push button IVR, enabling the customer to simply say what they wanted.

Using a financial services’ statistical language model of over 100,000 phrases, the system can more accurately assess the nature of the call and transfer it the first time to the appropriate department or advisor. The company reduced its call waiting times to around 30 seconds and misdirected calls to virtually nil.

5. Dealing with spikes in call volumes
You need to handle high volumes of customer service inquiries from repeat customers.

The betting industry is an example of a business that has very high volumes of calls from regular ‘punters’, most of which occur in irregular peaks and troughs. During a normal day, races occur every ten minutes with 80 percent of calls occurring minutes before each race.

brett-Feldon-hig-res.jpg
Brett Feldon

To overcome this problem Ladbrokes was able to divert the calls depending simply on their nature, e.g. placing a bet, or asking for odds, which were both handled automatically, or for more complex ‘customized’ bets they could speak directly to an operator.

The system is effective on all race days, but on big race days such as The Grand National or The Cheltenham Gold Cup, it enables the company to increase the capacity of its call centers without the need to add additional staff. A large database of over 40,000 registered horses and 6,000 football players is part of an extensive database that is updated in real-time.

Call center agents are on the customer experience frontline, representing your organization to consumers. In an increasingly digital world, they could be the only employee that a customer actually interacts with. Being an agent is not easy.

Customers are becoming increasingly demanding, often upset and angry, which adds to agent pressure. These stresses can lead to agents burning out and quitting their jobs, which impacts the wider contact center.

As well as providing agents with the support they need to work effectively, companies also need to recognize and reward good performance.

They need to move beyond traditional metrics such as Average Handling Time or the number of calls answered per shift.

Recognizing performance rather than simply tracking basic metrics benefits agents on an individual basis as they can see they are making a difference. It also provides best practice lessons that can be shared across the contact center.

However, with many contact centres handling thousands of interactions every day, identifying good performance can feel like searching for a needle in a haystack.

Luckily, AI technology can help automate the heavy lifting, recognizing where agents have delivered excellent service. Here are four areas where it adds value to understanding call center agent performance

1. Analysing Interaction Recordings
In the past, the only way of checking quality and identifying best practices was through manually reading transcripts of interactions.

And as no one person had the time to read every transcript, supervisors had to pick a selection to analyze. This meant it was easy to miss good performances, as well as introduce variability into the analysis.

Using AI can transform the process enabling companies to automatically analyze every interaction, on every channel.

The system can then flag a shortlist of interactions for supervisors to scrutinize in more detail, spotting best practices and outstanding achievements which can then be properly rewarded.

2. Analysing the Voice of the Customer
Customer feedback is crucial to improving products and services, meaning more and more organizations now run Voice of the CustomerVoC) programs.

Whether collected through post-call surveys or through interaction analysis, VoC provides key data into call center agent performance.

Again, using AI-based text analytics enables companies to identify excellent performance and training opportunities from interactions, without needing to read every one manually. VoC data also enables companies to improve their customer service operations and processes.

For example, they can see where customers get stuck or spot common issues and drive effective changes using this info.

3. Analysing Agent Performance Around Knowledge
Customers have a growing range of questions that they want answered. Introducing a centralized knowledge base enables companies to meet this need.

Knowledge bases can provide accurate, consistent responses across every channel, from chatbots and web self-service to calls and emails.

Agents have a strong part to play in establishing knowledge bases and keeping them up to date. So, recognize knowledge champions who contribute answers and feedback.

Use them as examples for the wider contact center. This shows agents that you value their work and encourages them to provide more feedback.

Analyzing the questions agents ask the knowledge base also shows where individual agents may be less confident and in need of refresher training.

4. Analysing the Voice of the Employee
Listening to employees and acting on their insight is vital to improving their experience and engagement. Companies should therefore run Voice of the Employee programs to collect feedback from their people on a regular basis, via surveys, interviews, and other means.

Use AI technology to make it easier to analyze open questions in surveys and identify themes and issues to act on.

Recognizing areas for improvement and fixing problems helps motivate agents as it shows they are being listened to.

Agents can also be rewarded for ideas they suggest that improve how the company operates. There’s a direct link between happy staff and excellent customer service so it is important to reward their hard work.

Understanding Call Centre Agent Performance
Ensuring agents are working effectively is key to delivering high-quality customer service and retaining their skills.

Therefore, use technology to give deeper insight into performance, allowing you to recognize, reward, and share best practices across your organization.

This blog post has been re-published with the kind permission of Enghouse Interactive – View the Original Article

Outbound calling can be a powerful way to connect with potential customers and drive sales, but it’s not always easy to get it right. That’s why having a solid outbound call strategy is so important.

Are you ready to take your B2B sales success to the next level?

Whether you’re a sales pro or just starting out, our expert tips and tricks will help you master outbound calling. Let’s now examine 8 effective outbound call strategies you should know to achieve sales success:

1) Have a Clear Objective
When it comes to outbound calling, having a clear objective is essential. You need to know exactly what you want to achieve with each call. Are you calling to generate new leads, renew existing contracts, or introduce a new product or service?

Having a clear objective is an outbound call strategy that will help you tailor your approach and messaging accordingly. It will also help you stay focused and make the most of your time on the call. Without a clear objective, you risk sounding disorganized and wasting your prospect’s time.

2) Research Your Prospects
Researching your prospects is another crucial element of outbound calling. Before you pick up the phone, you need to know as much as you can about your target audience. This includes their business, their pain points, and how your product or service can solve their problems.

With this information, you’ll be better equipped to make a convincing case for why they should work with you. Moreover, researching your prospects shows that you’re invested in their success and can help build a stronger relationship.

3) Prepare a Script
With outbound calls, you don’t want to sound robotic or scripted. However, having a rough outline of what you want to say can be helpful. Your script should include an introduction, your value proposition, and a clear call to action. This will ensure you cover all the essential points and make the most of your time on the call.

However, it’s important to note that you should never read from a script word-for-word. Instead, use it as a guide and be prepared to adapt your approach based on your prospect’s responses.

4) Be Personable
Being personable is another essential element of outbound calling. While you want to stay on message, you also want to engage your prospects in conversation. Ask them questions and listen to their responses. This will help you build rapport and make a more meaningful connection. Furthermore, being personable also helps you come across as more trustworthy and approachable. Thus, making it more likely that your prospects will want to work with you.

5) Conduct Regular Follow-ups
Following up is critical to successful outbound calling. If your prospect expresses interest but isn’t quite ready to commit, make sure to follow up. Send them an email, provide additional information, and continue to nurture the relationship.

This keeps you at the top of your mind and increases the chances of converting them into a customer later on. Additionally, following up shows that you’re invested in their success and can help build trust.

6) Measure Your Success
Measuring the success of your outbound calling strategy is essential to grow your business. Keep track of how many calls you make, how many prospects you speak with, and how many convert into customers. You can then use this data to refine your approach and improve your results. By measuring your success, you can also identify areas where you may need to improve or adjust your strategy.

7) Use Technology
It’s worth noting that using technology can also make outbound calling more efficient and effective. Auto-dialers, call recording software, and customer relationship management (CRM) systems can all help streamline your approach and make it easier to manage your calls.
For example, NeoDove’s Telecalling CRM and Dialer provides an all-in-one solution to optimize lead management and supercharge your sales. Not only this but its smart auto dialer also makes the entire inbound and outbound process more efficient.

Overall, these kinds of tools can help you track your progress and identify areas where you can improve.

8) Train Your Team
Lastly, training your outbound calling team is crucial to success. You should provide them with the tools and resources they need to be successful and coach them on best practices. Ensure all your team members understand your objectives, messaging, and target market. By investing in your team’s training and development, you can immensely improve the overall success of your outbound calling efforts.

Conclusion
Overall, outbound calling although appearing simple enough can in reality be quite challenging.

By now, you should have a better understanding of the key elements that go into a successful outbound calling strategy. Remember, it’s not just about picking up the phone and dialing numbers. You also need to have a plan in place to make the most of each call.

From identifying your objectives to researching prospects to tracking your results, every step of the process matters. By following these best practices for outbound call management, you can increase your chances of making meaningful connections with potential customers. More importantly, you can also drive more revenue for your business.

As a seller, you provide a wide range of specific products. So, why would your potential customers possibly be struggling with their final decisions?

Quite simply, it’s because there are many competitors out there who also sell similar products. As such, you need to separate yourself from them. Stand out so that these potential buyers turn into your customers.

1) Prepare clear and appropriate descriptions of exactly what products you offer
You should be specific and to the point. No hidden costs. People like to know as many details as possible to help them make proper decisions.

Talk up the benefits of your product but keep it honest. Don’t make promises that you won’t be able to keep. It’s quite easy to fall in a “one-time customer” trap, but you should avoid that hole.

Establishing alongside maintaining good relationships with your new customers can help you retain them longer. Moreover, they could also turn into ambassadors of your brand!

Furthermore, show visuals of your products. Ensure that you take good photos. If necessary, you should consider hiring a professional photographer.

2) Know the difference between a benefit and a feature of your product
A feature refers to something that describes a product, such as what it “is” or “does”.

Meanwhile, a benefit talks about something that the product has that is of interest or a perk for your customer.

For example, a car with a reinforced safety roof. Here, the roof is a feature. Alternatively, if you were to say a car that keeps your family safe. Here, the promise of safety is the benefit.

Knowing the difference between the two helps you know when it’s important to highlight each of them. This is especially useful when presenting your product.

3) Provide something that is more than expected (some kind of bonus)
People like bonuses quite a lot. Offering bonuses alongside your product can help build positive emotions around your brand.

They help make customers feel elated and happy as well as appreciated.

As such, your customers can connect these strong positive emotions to your brand. Thus, this greatly increases the chances of your brand not being forgotten.

You can add samples, incorporate creative packaging, add a note, exceptional service, etc. You can more or less add any little feature that your customer didn’t pay for but they might appreciate.

However, remember to be unique and thoughtful, and target your customers appropriately.

4) Emphasize what’s unique about your business
One of the most important ways to build a reputation for your brand is to set it apart from others. You should keep this in mind whenever you’re presenting a product to a customer.

Remember to focus on the unique aspects of the product you are offering. Highlight these features whenever you market them to prospective customers.

Use your business’ unique features to your advantage and to differentiate yourself from your competitors. In addition to giving your brand its own distinct essence, it will also help customers recall your product easily.

5) Your customers must be well informed about all the terms and conditions relating to your product
Ensure that all these rules are simple, easy to understand, and readily available to your customers. This way, they won’t have to spend time looking for them.

So, what should you include in your terms of service/user agreement?

Mainly, you should include information concerning general terms of use, taxes and refunds, payments, or membership programs.

These terms serve as an agreement between you both. They protect both your customers as well as your business.

6) Create a strong interpersonal connection with them
Establishing and maintaining a deep personal connection with your customers is highly important. Often, it can be one of the key factors that drive purchase decisions.

This means giving your customers exactly what they want, i.e., a strong relationship with your brand. Creating and carefully handling this relationship can even convince them to buy more from you.

Furthermore, if they are satisfied you can reap the benefits. They can also spread their satisfaction with your service via word of mouth and convince and attract more customers.

7) Don’t hesitate in sharing user testimonials with them
It is a known fact that a majority of customers read reviews prior to buying actual products.

As such, sharing customer reviews can really help increase your brand’s credibility. Also, it will set the foundation for convincing them to buy more from you.

They act as social proof that your product does what it says and does it well. When used correctly, testimonials can be a highly effective resource.

A brilliant testimonial can at times even demonstrates how a business’ pain points can be solved. It can do it with more immediacy than a brochure would, especially if it were video-based.

Lastly, they humanize your brand. Everyone loves a good story. They provide a human interest angle that truly enables customers to better connect with and understand the product.

8) Lastly, always be reachable
Be sure to provide the exact name of your company, contact details, and frames when the customers can contact you.

If your business uses social media for communication, use it to stay in touch with all of your customers. You can easily do this by providing a specific link.

It is essential that your customers can easily reach you in case of any issues or concerns.

You can even post a contact form on your website (alongside social media platforms). This can act as a method to give them a voice and space to communicate their suggestions.

Listening to their feedback is sure to help you improve your product. Moreover, this would also help build a very trusting relationship between your business and customers.

Businesses need to be able to communicate with customers in their own language. Multilingual customer support is becoming increasingly important as businesses expand their customer base and enter new markets. In this blog post, we’ll explore why a business needs multilingual customer support and how it can benefit both the business and its customers.

Improve Customer Experience
One of the main reasons why a business needs multilingual customer support is to improve customer experience. When customers are able to communicate with support representatives in their native language, they are more likely to feel understood and valued. This can lead to greater customer satisfaction and loyalty.

According to a study by Common Sense Advisory, 75% of consumers prefer to buy products in their native language. Furthermore, 60% of consumers rarely or never buy from English-only websites. By offering multilingual customer support, businesses can tap into new markets and increase their customer base.

Increase Customer Retention
Providing multilingual customer support can also help to increase customer retention. Customers are more likely to continue doing business with a company that makes it easy for them to communicate and get support. By offering support in multiple languages, businesses can reduce the likelihood of customers switching to a competitor that offers better support options.

Reduce Complaints and Cancellations
Miscommunication can often lead to complaints and cancellations. When customers are unable to communicate their needs and concerns effectively, they may become frustrated and seek out alternatives. Providing multilingual customer support can help to reduce the number of complaints and cancellations by improving communication and ensuring that customers feel heard and understood.

Boost Team Efficiency
Multilingual customer support can also help to boost team efficiency. By hiring native speakers or using translation software, businesses can streamline the support process and reduce the time it takes to resolve issues. This can help to improve customer satisfaction and reduce wait times.

Open Up to the International Market
Finally, businesses need multilingual customer support to open up to the international market. By providing support in multiple languages, businesses can expand their customer base and tap into new markets. This can lead to increased revenue and growth opportunities.

Implementing Multilingual Customer Support

In order to implement multilingual customer support, businesses need to take a few key steps:

Research the Languages Spoken by Your Target Audience
The first step in implementing multilingual customer support is to research the languages spoken by your target audience. This will help you to determine which languages you need to offer support in and how many support representatives you need to hire.

Hire Native Support Reps
Once you have identified the languages you need to offer support in, you need to hire native support representatives who are fluent in those languages. This will ensure that customers receive high-quality support and that communication is effective.

Use Multilingual Chatbots
Using multilingual chatbots can also be an effective way to provide support in multiple languages. Chatbots can handle common inquiries and provide immediate assistance to customers, freeing up support representatives to handle more complex issues.

Create a Self-Service Knowledge Base
Creating a self-service knowledge base in multiple languages can also be a great way to provide support to customers. This allows customers to find answers to common questions on their own, without having to contact support.

Consider Translation Software and Machine Learning Technology
Finally, businesses can consider using translation software and machine learning technology to help with the process of providing multilingual customer support. These tools can help to streamline communication and improve efficiency.

Conclusion

Businesses need multilingual customer support to improve customer experience, increase customer retention, reduce complaints and cancellations, boost team efficiency, and open up to the international market. By offering support in multiple languages, businesses can tap into new markets, increase revenue, and build lasting relationships with their customers. Implementing multilingual customer support may require some investment of time and resources, but the benefits are well worth it in the end.